Hello everyone. MoO: CtS came out 6 months ago today! This happily coincides with my 500th post on the forums as well. We've spent much time talking about the flaws in this game and whether the devs are ever coming back. I thought it would be good to discuss the future of the game and where we go from here. I'm going to work under the assumption that the devs really are done with this, and that at best, we'll get one last bug fix patch in the future.

When MoO3 was released, it was terrible as we all know and much worse than MoO4 is currently is. I haven't played it since then, but I have read about how the modding community modded the hell out of it and made a good game out of it, and now there are some die hard MoO3 fans out there. MoO2 is still being patched to this day as well. I figure it's up to us to do the same with MoO4, at least until we get a MoO5.

Unfortunately, the modding system for MoO4 was never fully implemented. We can't import custom assets or implement new features or changes to the UI. Within another 6 months, I expect that we'll hit the limits of the yaml modding system. I'll have very few changes to 5X to make after releasing version 3.0, and every other idea for a mod I have, as well as those that other people have I imagine, will be exhausted (though I do have one more major mod project to do after 5X which many of you will enjoy).

That means we're going to have to start breaking into the game's code and fixing stuff. WhatIsSol has already taken the lead on this, and I expect that we'll see a patch soon to the game's .dll from him to fix the MIRV missile bug among others. From there, we can work on features. We might not ever get multiplayer tactical combat, but for a start there are some nice small features that seem like they're in the realm of possibility. I, for one, would like to see

More slots in the build queue

A better auto build algorithm

Ground combat bonuses of both sides displayed on the colony attack screen

Maybe some AI improvements? Those are harder.

Maybe a scroll bar on the ship blueprints screen so we can add several more blueprints slots.

The ability to invade minor civs

Maybe being able to pick which race you want your colony ship to be populated with instead of it always using your race's population, similar to civil transports

I think that would be a good start. I think there are programmers among us who are up to the task too. What do you guys think? Do you have any other suggestions? This game isn't dead as long as we're still working on it.

Hi. I'm rather new and I too wanted to create some mods for the game. The way modding works in this game seems rather limited. For example, one of the first things I wanted to do was making colony ships drop more population on the planet and modifing the transports so they could "carry" more population. Seemed like a good idea and I figured it would be rather easy. Just find the values and change a "1" to a "2". So I searched and searched in the .yaml files, but I didn't find the values and keys I needed. So yeah, frustrating.

A mod i'm currently trying to figure out is related to pirates. When you defeat a pirate base you get a prize - either gold or population. I want to add another reward - a chance to get a new ship. Or an unique "pirate" leader. I'm also working on making the pirates more interesting and giving them some more firepower, ship designs and stuff like that. (Testing a mod takes a lot of time. And most of the time it doesn't work as intended, so yeah.

I'm going to keep working on it, Modding the textures and models would be awesome, but it doesn't seem posible at this point. Most I did was some custom UI icons. Which is nice, but not much.

It saddens me to see this game abandoned by the devs less than 6 months after release. Not really surprised though because we all saw the signs during early access when valid community suggestions were ignored and sometimes even mocked by those in charge. The most frustrating part is that all the bad things could still be fixed. The foundation of the game is fine. But the devs would rather walk away and spite the MOO community because we failed to appreciate their "MOO for dummies" vision. I've had plenty of issues with Wargaming's handling of their tank, plane and ship games, but the bungling of this game has really soured me on trying any new game Wargaming introduces ever again. As for modding it, I am interested to see how much it can be improved. It might become worthwhile if the modding community can work a small miracle. God speed in that regard.

BTW, on a side note, MOO 3 was considered a dismal flop and rightly so. How were its sales numbers though in comparison to MOO CTS? Does anybody know? This version is not nearly as bad as MOO 3 was, but were its actual sales any better?

Bug: Minor Civilization investing does not show reduction in your BC's total until you proceed to the next turn
Fix: Forced refresh of screen

Bug: If Over Command Limit and you scrap a ship, the screen still shows that you are running a BC deficit due to command points overage
Fix: Recalculates the Net Command Points for your fleet and forced screen refresh after this event

Bug: At start of turn, if your empire procedures a ship or otherwise increased command points over your limit, this new BC deficit does not show up until your next turn
Fix: Recalculates the Net Command Points for your fleet and forced screen refresh after this event

Bug: Starbases/Missile Bases/Orbital Batteries/Military Outposts do not repair themselves.
Fix: Added at start of your turn all static defenses are repaired at a fixed 20% rate

Bug: AI is overvaluing trade/research treaties - you can make insane lopsided deals
Fix: Changed calculation so it is more of a neutral decision

Yes a list of wish features and bugs would be great. I personally really want to focus on eliminating bugs first, but this game is missing some needed features.

Ground combat as it stands is like a total question mark - As Spud says you don't get to see any combat numbers and If I recalling correctly doesn't the attacker troops not disappear ? Personally I consider this a bug.

I know a feature tons of people have wanted is rally points (myself included).

If you use missile/antimissile, during a tactical combat you can see some missiles that never hit a target, followed by a swarm of antimissiles that never hit the missile,

And ships continue to fire anti missile on it during all the fight....

I noticed the same effect on the new "fighter bay" on the last version of 5x mod; a swarm of missiles around this structure, and missiles never hit this target.

Also, on tactical there is something wrong with ship speed.

Sometime, fast ship equalize their speed on slow ship speed, and sometime not... so on a battle if you have two pack of slow ship you can see one pack go at their maximum speed, and the other one who move like a snail,

Also if you select a group of ships and activate a mounted device, the device is not activated for all ships of the group. Always see this for speed boost device.

Of course, only one modification is really mandatory to make a good game : improve AI.

I don't tell to make the AI smart, i know it is not easy to do... but at least if the AI could stop to build useless/stupid buildings....

Something could be cool to add on this game : Auto-destruction for obsoletes building (example : auto-destruction of xenocontrol center when all the population is assimilated) (5x pollution cleaner buiding need this too)

Actually when i play i have to notice where all these kind of building are, to avoid to search on all my planets.

Actually there is no challenge if playing against AI, and because of this the game is boring... even with great mods like 5x, and even on extrem/impossible levels... and... up again the AI has no sense... we reach the limit for a playable game.

And this: After severals games, i can tell that star line are a terrible wrong decision.

This is because of start line that we can block and control AI so easily.

IAnd this: After severals games, i can tell that star line are a terrible wrong decision.

This is because of start line that we can block and control AI so easily.

On "open game" the AI could be a better challenge.

​I've been singing that tune for better part of a year, but they closed their ears and labelled those who hated their silly starlanes as fanatics and MOO 2 purists. That said, the game is playable even with the lanes. The lousy tactical combat (and non-existing tactical in multiplayer) is the major deal breaker.

Hi. I'm rather new and I too wanted to create some mods for the game. The way modding works in this game seems rather limited. For example, one of the first things I wanted to do was making colony ships drop more population on the planet and modifing the transports so they could "carry" more population. Seemed like a good idea and I figured it would be rather easy. Just find the values and change a "1" to a "2". So I searched and searched in the .yaml files, but I didn't find the values and keys I needed. So yeah, frustrating.

A mod i'm currently trying to figure out is related to pirates. When you defeat a pirate base you get a prize - either gold or population. I want to add another reward - a chance to get a new ship. Or an unique "pirate" leader.

Those would both have to be done through code edits as they're not possible with yaml mods.

WhatIsSol, on 26 February 2017 - 09:34 AM, said:

I know a feature tons of people have wanted is rally points (myself included).

<Let it be the know the new definition of tons is 2 or more people>

Rally points would be great! I forgot I wanted those.

Laegad, on 26 February 2017 - 10:41 AM, said:

I noticed some bug we never speak about on this forum,

This one should be fixed:

If you use missile/antimissile, during a tactical combat you can see some missiles that never hit a target, followed by a swarm of antimissiles that never hit the missile,

And ships continue to fire anti missile on it during all the fight....

I noticed the same effect on the new "fighter bay" on the last version of 5x mod; a swarm of missiles around this structure, and missiles never hit this target.

Also, on tactical there is something wrong with ship speed.

Sometime, fast ship equalize their speed on slow ship speed, and sometime not... so on a battle if you have two pack of slow ship you can see one pack go at their maximum speed, and the other one who move like a snail,

Also if you select a group of ships and activate a mounted device, the device is not activated for all ships of the group. Always see this for speed boost device.

Of course, only one modification is really mandatory to make a good game : improve AI.

I don't tell to make the AI smart, i know it is not easy to do... but at least if the AI could stop to build useless/stupid buildings....

Something could be cool to add on this game : Auto-destruction for obsoletes building (example : auto-destruction of xenocontrol center when all the population is assimilated) (5x pollution cleaner buiding need this too)

Actually when i play i have to notice where all these kind of building are, to avoid to search on all my planets.

Actually there is no challenge if playing against AI, and because of this the game is boring... even with great mods like 5x, and even on extrem/impossible levels... and... up again the AI has no sense... we reach the limit for a playable game.

And this: After severals games, i can tell that star line are a terrible wrong decision.

This is because of start line that we can block and control AI so easily.

On "open game" the AI could be a better challenge.

I've noticed the missile bug, but it happens so rarely that I tend to ignore it. I never saw the ship speed one though. I usually tell my ships to match speed at the beginning of the battle anyway.

I do agree that AI improvements are among the things that this game needs most, but AI settings are really complicated. Maybe we could at least make them build structures in a more efficient order.

Auto destruction of obsolete buildings is a good idea! I would modify it slightly though to have a button you could press on the empire screen to do it rather than it happening without your consent.

I think it might be possible to create a code mod for the game that gets rid of star lanes. Specifically, it would make each star system have 1 exit point and have that exit point connected to every other star on the map, then you make the star lanes invisible. This would require modding one of the .bin files for galaxy generation, which would be difficult. We would then have to implement a fuel mechanic though and put fuel cells in the tech tree. The fuel techs are in the game, but the code that makes them work has been removed. Since the game already knows how to measure travel distance, it should be reasonable to design a fuel mechanic though. This would take a lot of time, but it wouldn't be impossible. What would be much harder is getting the AI to cope with it.

Other features I'd like to see:

A "build on all planets" button on the empire screen, where when you click it, it opens the build menu, and you can queue any building/ship on all planets that don't have that building and that are eligible to build it at the same time.

Queuing up buildings on a planet with auto build no longer automatically disables auto build

I think it might be possible to create a code mod for the game that gets rid of star lanes. Specifically, it would make each star system have 1 exit point and have that exit point connected to every other star on the map, then you make the star lanes invisible. This would require modding one of the .bin files for galaxy generation, which would be difficult. We would then have to implement a fuel mechanic though and put fuel cells in the tech tree. The fuel techs are in the game, but the code that makes them work has been removed. Since the game already knows how to measure travel distance, it should be reasonable to design a fuel mechanic though. This would take a lot of time, but it wouldn't be impossible. What would be much harder is getting the AI to cope with it.

​Yes. I suggested as much several times during EA. Glad I'm not the only one who thinks so. Make it work and your deeds will be remembered in song.

​I've been singing that tune for better part of a year, but they closed their ears and labelled those who hated their silly starlanes as fanatics and MOO 2 purists. That said, the game is playable even with the lanes. The lousy tactical combat (and non-existing tactical in multiplayer) is the major deal breaker.

I'm not a "MoO2 fanatic" (but i've played MoO2 a lot; when i was "young" )

If i written this, it is because i played a lot with this version of MoO (since major part of the early access), and AI is not a good chalenger.

When they decided to put start line, i told to myself "why not"... we could try this... it could be a good decision...

Now I remember games with MoO2 with all AI fleet coming to my empire during end-game war.

In this version, AI cannot do that, and just turtle... this is all what you want but it is not something for a good game... you win or not, but there is no fun on this.

So now i can tell that star line is a wrong decision.

With an agressive AI, perhaps it could be a good decision, but the AI is not agressive.. AI do not play in order to win but only develop itself.... that's the problem of this game.

Auto destruction of obsolete buildings is a good idea! I would modify it slightly though to have a button you could press on the empire screen to do it rather than it happening without your consent.

I think it might be possible to create a code mod for the game that gets rid of star lanes. Specifically, it would make each star system have 1 exit point and have that exit point connected to every other star on the map, then you make the star lanes invisible. This would require modding one of the .bin files for galaxy generation, which would be difficult. We would then have to implement a fuel mechanic though and put fuel cells in the tech tree. The fuel techs are in the game, but the code that makes them work has been removed. Since the game already knows how to measure travel distance, it should be reasonable to design a fuel mechanic though. This would take a lot of time, but it wouldn't be impossible. What would be much harder is getting the AI to cope with it.

Great !

I didn't think auto-destruction of obsolet building was possible to made (without a patch from dev, of course),

There are so many game i noticed on paper a list of all of them... last game i had 30 planets with "xenocontrol centers" noted, some recyclotron, some cloning centers...

Something to find planets with a specific building from the "empire" screen could replace this too.

This should be added in game by dev.. this game was released not finished

For star line i already have the temptation to try something like that, but i did not know we could make star line invisbles and afraid of ugly galaxy map,

Star lanes can be a tactical enrichment, if they are done right. For example Stellaris has a similar system. In this game there are three versions of drives. The wormhole device, warp device and hyperlane device. The first lets you jump from one wormhole station to another almost immediatly but requieres those stations (great in defence but bad in offence). Something like the jumpgates in MoO. Warp devices are the slowest but can travel everywhere and hyperlane devices are the fastest way to travel in general but you are limited to those hyperlanes. In Stellaris this works all fine because star systems have no limited entry points. You enter systems according to your starting point in a direct line.

But how can us help these informations in MoO? Well we have a combination of the wormhole device via jumpgates and the hyperlane devices for travelling to distant worlds outside of our empire. Stellaris faces the problem of turtle A.I by introducing a fourth way of traveling later in the tech tree as you develop your devices further: the jump drives. These devices allow your ships to jump to every system within reach ignoring hyperlanes or wormhole station you had to build earlier. In terms of MoO: Instead of making invisible starlanes everywhere, what if entrypoints and planets are treated if they have a jumpgate build on it. Maybe this is easier to do and it opens up some strategic aspects.

At the start of the game and in the early to midgame you and the A.I are limited to the starlanes but once you have developed the jump drives you can't turtle up anymore especially if the A.I reaches that point earlier than you. To make jump gates not totally obsolete, they could grant a higher travelling movement speed than without them once you have developed jump devices, so they still are somewhat useful speaking of defending your empire.

On the starlane blocking problem via military outposts. Maybe they should be removed from the building queue for space factories. Instead they can be build in the planet queue limited to one per system. With this adjustment you can strengthen the defence of one colony by adding the outpost to there defence buildings but you cannot block starlanes anymore. If you think that's to weak, maybe the could grant a bonus to all defence structures in the system.

The only problem i see with those ideas, that only one type of buidling can be placed on entry points. So if they are blocked by invisible jump gates no other building can be placed on them. With the outposts moved to planet buidlings only jump gates and space surveillance systems are left. Jump gates could be an upgrade (which i recommended so they aren't useless) and space surveillance systems should be built on planets like astroid mines with the space factory (just like the versions of the astroid mines/labratories for uncolonised planets in the 5X mod)

Star lanes can be a tactical enrichment, if they are done right. For example Stellaris has a similar system. In this game there are three versions of drives. The wormhole device, warp device and hyperlane device. The first lets you jump from one wormhole station to another almost immediatly but requieres those stations (great in defence but bad in offence). Something like the jumpgates in MoO. Warp devices are the slowest but can travel everywhere and hyperlane devices are the fastest way to travel in general but you are limited to those hyperlanes. In Stellaris this works all fine because star systems have no limited entry points. You enter systems according to your starting point in a direct line.

But how can us help these informations in MoO? Well we have a combination of the wormhole device via jumpgates and the hyperlane devices for travelling to distant worlds outside of our empire. Stellaris faces the problem of turtle A.I by introducing a fourth way of traveling later in the tech tree as you develop your devices further: the jump drives. These devices allow your ships to jump to every system within reach ignoring hyperlanes or wormhole station you had to build earlier. In terms of MoO: Instead of making invisible starlanes everywhere, what if entrypoints and planets are treated if they have a jumpgate build on it. Maybe this is easier to do and it opens up some strategic aspects.

At the start of the game and in the early to midgame you and the A.I are limited to the starlanes but once you have developed the jump drives you can't turtle up anymore especially if the A.I reaches that point earlier than you. To make jump gates not totally obsolete, they could grant a higher travelling movement speed than without them once you have developed jump devices, so they still are somewhat useful speaking of defending your empire.

On the starlane blocking problem via military outposts. Maybe they should be removed from the building queue for space factories. Instead they can be build in the planet queue limited to one per system. With this adjustment you can strengthen the defence of one colony by adding the outpost to there defence buildings but you cannot block starlanes anymore. If you think that's to weak, maybe the could grant a bonus to all defence structures in the system.

The only problem i see with those ideas, that only one type of buidling can be placed on entry points. So if they are blocked by invisible jump gates no other building can be placed on them. With the outposts moved to planet buidlings only jump gates and space surveillance systems are left. Jump gates could be an upgrade (which i recommended so they aren't useless) and space surveillance systems should be built on planets like astroid mines with the space factory (just like the versions of the astroid mines/labratories for uncolonised planets in the 5X mod)

I hope this ideas help a little bit.

This would be harder than just linking every system to every other system. Having every warp point generate a jump connection would have to be programmed from scratch, and it would have to have some way to handle multiple races colonizing the same system. It would be easier to start with the linking every system by star lane idea and work from there. Military outposts wouldn't be as strong anyway as they could only guard one system instead of creating choke points. There are some good ideas here, but I think we should start with something easier, since it will be difficult enough to get a fuel mechanic working properly and getting the AI to deal with different movement mechanics.

The compromise I had in mind for star lanes would be that jumps between colonized planets would be possible and researching jump tech would reduce the time it takes to jump, with the advanced version making it a 0 cost.

Still doesn't resolve the bigger issue that I have with the whole deal that better engines are near useless due to all the jumps needed and my approach would just make it even worse. It would make it a lot easier to defend your own colonies. And perhaps a sort of tech that lets you jump to any planet sort of could be possible abusing the jump gate mechanism?

This would be harder than just linking every system to every other system. Having every warp point generate a jump connection would have to be programmed from scratch, and it would have to have some way to handle multiple races colonizing the same system. It would be easier to start with the linking every system by star lane idea and work from there. Military outposts wouldn't be as strong anyway as they could only guard one system instead of creating choke points. There are some good ideas here, but I think we should start with something easier, since it will be difficult enough to get a fuel mechanic working properly and getting the AI to deal with different movement mechanics.

​Hey Spud, for a simple fuel mechanic we could just tie travel time to engine types. So a nuclear engine for example could be limited to jumps of 4 or 5 turns max. A trip that would take 6 turns would be considered out of range and disallowed. As engines get better, travel speeds increase which naturally increases fuel range at the same pace. Make any sense?

​Hey Spud, for a simple fuel mechanic we could just tie travel time to engine types. So a nuclear engine for example could be limited to jumps of 4 or 5 turns max. A trip that would take 6 turns would be considered out of range and disallowed. As engines get better, travel speeds increase which naturally increases fuel range at the same pace. Make any sense?

Makes sense. It might be easier to program too. It would have the interesting side effect that augmented engines double as extended fuel tanks.

more volatility in the interstellar market, so that it is more than just a BC sink on the way to economic victory. The current Buy/Sell spread is always so high there is no way to game it to make any cash out of it, and that is just boring.

deeper build queue than just 5, and a option to actually repeat builds

fix tactical combat bugs. turn off the damn centering of the screen on ships that reached their destination; with big fleets the screen jumps around so much its nearly unplayable.

more volatility in the interstellar market, so that it is more than just a BC sink on the way to economic victory. The current Buy/Sell spread is always so high there is no way to game it to make any cash out of it, and that is just boring.

deeper build queue than just 5, and a option to actually repeat builds

fix tactical combat bugs. turn off the damn centering of the screen on ships that reached their destination; with big fleets the screen jumps around so much its nearly unplayable.

(edit: add more ideas)

Fixed in WhatIsSol's Patch

Fixed in 5X mod

WhatIsSol is working on it

Point 8 would help with that

We've been asking for a way to give counter offers since EA. It would be nice but difficult to program. We can take a look and see if there's an easier way to do it.

New spying missions take quite a bit of work. We'll work on some more high priority items first (such as rally points and custom build queues) I think before tackling this one.

I agree that buy/sell amount should be basically the same. Maybe there should be some random variance too like each turn it calculates the value it would normally be then adds plus or minus 10% for that turn.

We need these both for sure. Hopefully extending the build queue length is not too difficult.

You can disable the centering of the screen when ships reach their destination in the Options menu. As for bugs, we need to know specifically what bugs exist and when they are triggered. One that really bothers me is that the threatened area donut always resets.